


'cause nobody saves me baby, the way you do

by lelex



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Emotions of mass proportions, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Sharing a Bed, also sorry bits you had to take the fall in this one, and Dex tries to assist with those feelings in his own special way, barely, bc I'm absolute trash for that trope, canon typical drinking, in which Nursey has a lot of feelings, predictably, the Derek Nurse is Emo As Fuck podcast, there is some baking as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 14:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7717612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lelex/pseuds/lelex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And for one horrible second Dex is about to apologize, about to take it back, when Nursey is sitting up straight again and essentially shouting into the quiet of the library. No fucking wonder they always get kicked out of this section of the stacks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'cause nobody saves me baby, the way you do

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first actual real published fic which is pretty wild, sorry that I used a ridiculous amount of commas and a pretty significant amount of italics. I’m so used to showing emphasis liKE THis what the FUCk so not doing that all the time was pretty challenging 
> 
> I love these idiots and their complex relationship and I love omgcp thanks ngozi for making something so beautiful and amazing
> 
> let me know if you h8 it actually pls don’t love you bye 
> 
> very special thanks to @transylvanianosmosis on tumblr and Bon for betaing my fic and providing corrections and suggestions, and to Q for telling me it wasn’t shitty and that it made you scream twice which is exactly what I needed to hear
> 
> (also the title is from a 1d song bc I'm reformed 1d trash)

They’ve been hanging out a lot more. Usually alone. Surprisingly alone, for them. Not killing each other when nobody is around to police them alone, just regular alone. They’ve been spending time together as as though they’re people who don’t hate each other, people who hang out after all their friends have gone home. They’re able to do work in the Haus or in the library, like where they are now, hours after everyone else has left.

They seem to have found their groove. They mesh together in a way that still doesn’t quite fit at times, but their relationship is no longer like trying to force a square block into a circular hole. It’s easier now. They still argue, a lot. But they can sit in silence and work separately, while still together. It’s nice, comfortable.

It’s easier to read each other now, in many ways; to tell when they’re tired or ready to leave or when the fuckin’ hipster ukulele music is beginning to be just a bit too much, could you _please stop,_ turn it off, I can’t think, _let alone_ code, with that shit playing.

So they’re in the library both doing what other library patrons could assume to be work, sitting across from each other with a relative ease. Dex has found that he actually enjoys doing work with Nursey around. He’s noticed that his presence could be considered comforting, if you squint and cross your eyes a little bit.

Plus, Dex likes the way that Nursey tugs on his hair when he writes, like he’s doing now. It makes his already curly hair stand even higher on his head and it makes Dex laugh in a carefree way that doesn’t necessarily come easy to him, mostly because making fun of his linemate is no longer an unpleasant experience that would inevitably degenerate into shouting and snapping. When Nursey gets really into whatever he’s doing, Dex has taken to putting little bits of things in his hair and then waiting to see how long it takes for him to notice. Normally it's just bits of paper or eraser, but sometimes he can get actual pens in there if Nursey is laser focused. Pens are even more points and he usually will take a celebratory picture and send it to the group chat. The most he’s gotten is three, a personal record and an outstanding triumph if he does say so himself.

Dex has his computer and is working on one of his various comp sci projects and Nursey has what appears to be a thousand pieces of paper spread out around him in a vaguely horrifying and clearly unorganized mess. In the last few minutes, Nursey has been making these odd, frustrated sounding keening noises.

The first time he does it, Dex has to squint and look around to make sure there isn’t anyone banging in the stacks in the immediate vicinity.

The groaning happens again and Dex turns to look directly at him. Nursey doesn’t look like he just made a purely obscene sex noise, he’s bent over his work and is scribbling in a pretentious leather journal, but Dex watches for a few minutes to be sure. Eventually, Nursey does it again and Dex has to prevent himself from visibly flinching. The borderline pornographic groaning that he’s casually producing is making Dex flush a little more each time the sound exits his mouth, for a reason that he’s pretty sure he is never, ever going to examine.

Dex resolutely decides to completely ignore the noises and the _extreme_ type of way they made him feel, up until Nursey groans again and leans back in his chair to stretch without his eyes ever leaving the paper.

Let it be known that Dex hates the henleys that Nursey always wears. They look stupidly soft and are always worn in and Dex wants to rub his face on them in a way that is absolutely unacceptable. They’re all clearly a few years old, because they stretch across Nursey’s shoulders in a way that makes his obvious muscle gain from lifting regularly and constant practice just a little more obvious. He probably wears them on fucking purpose. What a dick.

When he leans back, Nursey’s stupid shirt rides up just enough for Dex to a little strip of his belly and his descending happy trail and Dex has to physically prevent himself from gagging. (Or possibly whimpering, he’s not quite sure what sound would have come out of his mouth if he’d let it.) Who the fuck even looks that good in the _library,_ for god’s sake. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s a remotely good person with goals and ambitions. He shouldn’t be paralyzed in his library chair from the sight of an inch of Derek Nurse’s fucking stomach. He is a stronger man than this, for fuck’s sake.

Nursey has long since returned to scratching in his notebook, his annoyingly defined jaw sitting in his palm, propped up on his elbow. Dex abandons his work and reaches out and with a quick shove, pushes Nursey’s entire arm off the table.

A vaguely surprised noise, almost a shriek if Dex is being particularly vindictive in his description, comes from Nursey’s annoying mouth, whose head is now planted firmly on the library table, having landed with a satisfying thunk.

“What is your problem. Stop making pseudo-porn noises in the library.” He manages to say it with fairly deadpan delivery. He thinks it deserves some sort of recognition, given the way his entire body feels like it’s on fire and how he wasn't entirely sure he'd have been able to string together a legitimately intelligible sentence ten seconds ago.

He’s watching the top of Nursey’s head, riddled with strips of curled up paper, for an answer to his not-question and is thoroughly disappointed when he only gets some incoherent mumbling as a response.

“Seriously, what’s your _deal._ ” Dex has found that completely omitting the inflection at ends of questions, specifically when the question is directed at Nurse, drastically limits the amount of bullshit he gets in response.

“Fucking stressed…” is the vague response he gets a few minutes later, after Nursey has sat back up in his chair and resumed loudly scratching at his page.

Dex doesn’t make any attempt to hide his scoff. 

“What are you fuckin’ stressed for. You’re taking bullshit classes, dude. Don’t complain.”

He waits a little while, expecting Nursey to respond at some point, given that this is an argument they occasionally have that is usually pretty fiery. When he doesn’t, he presses on.

“Seriously dude, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature isn’t a real thing. All your classes are blow off classes.”

Nursey is scowling at him now, his full brows furrowed in a way that isn’t unattractive. Dex hates him a little bit for being so pretty. When he scowls, he just looks like a petulant orange child. When Nursey scowls, it’s smoldering, like a boy on the front page of some indie modeling magazine. Fuckin’ idiot.

“Sorry man, not my fault that Lord Byron is stressing you out.” Dex is smirking, proud of himself because that was a little funny. Sometimes he manages that. He’s also pleasantly surprised that he remembered something that Nursey had vaguely talked about a few weeks ago.

“That’s not fucking fair.”

Mmm, this is interesting. Nursey is still scowling, but worse now, and his shoulders are creeping up around his ears in a way that looks distinctly uncomfortable. Dex sneaks a look at his hands, something that he can’t help but do semi-frequently. What can he say, the boy’s got nice hands. He’s got a death grip on one of his annoyingly expensive pens.

“Dude, ease off your pen there. Don’t want to accidentally snap it and disrupt the melodic flow of your words from flowing pen to gorgeous, blank page.”

“Shut the fuck _up,_ honestly.”

Dex can tell he’s getting riled up, but he’s bored and arguing with Nursey makes him feel like how hockey makes him feel. It’s the closest thing to that rush and soar that makes his heart beat loud and prominent in his ears, that makes him feel inherently more alive in a way he can’t quite explain. Plus, they haven’t argued in a few hours and he’s exhausted from doing work and can’t look at the same section of code anymore while trying to find the fucking tiny spot where he deleted a dash on accident earlier and fucked everything up.

“Sorry that you’re a fucking poetry major dude. Your work load isn’t _shit._ ”

Dex belatedly notes that Nursey has a touch of the crazy eyes goin’ on, á la Ransom a few days deep into finals. That probably should have been a warning.

Nursey hasn’t said anything for about thirty seconds, but they’re making wild eye contact and his hair looks insane in a ridiculous halo around his head because he’s been tugging on it in different spots for about two hours. He’s definitely got at least a half sheet of paper stuck in there. His gaze feels like it's burning a hole into Dex’s face and he knows he shouldn’t, especially with the crazy ass look in Nursey’s eyes but he can’t help but whisper under his breath but loud enough to where he knows he’ll be heard. 

“Sorry you’re such a fucking slacker.”

And then the mood is changing and suddenly it’s not funny anymore and Nursey has straightened like a board, sitting completely still in his char. Abruptly he deflates and is rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

And for one horrible second Dex is about to apologize, about to take it back, when Nursey is sitting up straight again and essentially shouting into the quiet of the library. No fucking wonder they always get kicked out of this section of the stacks.

“That’s _not_ fucking true.”

And for a second Dex is just…what. He’s just sitting there because he has no idea what’s going, what the fuck is he talking about.

Nursey is narrowing his eyes and hissing at a completely unacceptable volume, “That isn’t true, don’t you dare fucking say that.

“I try so god damned hard all of the fucking time.”

And Dex is putting his hands up and shrugging, eyes wide, because okay no, this is _not_ what he signed up for.

For a few seconds, Nursey looks murderous.

“Everybody fucking says that all the god damned time. And it isn’t true, it’s not.

"I have so much fucking work all of the time and I’m constantly swimming in six to ten page essays and poems and I’m so fucking stressed out to the point that I literally can’t breathe ever in my life. And everything happens just so much to the point where I _can’t_ keep going.”

All of the words come out in a rush with no time for breathing.

”I have three original poems due in my poetry class, I have an analytic essay about _fucking Ulysses_ in my classics class, I have to read _two novels_ by the end of this week and that’s _three of my five classes_

“And Christ, everybody gives me shit constantly for being a fucking creative writing/poetry major, why can’t anyone ever just _get off me._ Like, my god, it’s just as much work as any other major and it’s literally soul sucking. I have no time to write for pleasure and everything has to be a specific way, this or that. And I’m constantly doing work and putting everything I have into this endless black hole of a fucking decision to be successful and you _fucking assholes_ talk shit about me constantly.

“I’m sorry that I’m not pre med or a fuckin’ comp sci major or a goddamn engineer, but Christ, just because I’m not coding my own fucking video games or learning all the useless bones in the god damned hand doesn’t mean I’m not putting in _just_ as much work as you dicks.”

Nursey is talking so quickly that he can barely catch his breath and Dex can feel how wide his eyes are, he almost expects him to stop now, to recuperate, but he just….keeps on going.

“I don’t expect anything less from you ‘cause you’re a giant dick, but even Ransom and Holster give me shit. _Constantly._ Fuck, sometimes even _Bitty._ Like, dude! How can you give me shit like that when you bake so much that you don’t do your homework half the time, oh my _god._ ”

“I’m trying so _fucking_ hard and _nobody notices._ ”

It sounds so broken and Dex is torn between looking at Nursey like a deer in headlights and frantically checking around them to make sure that nobody has noticed the very obvious shrieking tone that he’s adopted.

Nursey thunks his head on to the desk in front of him again with a level of force that is definitely painful and tangles both hands in his hair and presses down on his skull, hard.

“And fuck dude, I haven’t slept in….I haven’t slept in like three days and nobody fucking notices. Like Christ, yeah whatever I’m fucking chill Nursey it’s chill we’re all good no worries, but nobody even _gives a damn_ or takes the time to notice that I’m a fucking zombie on my feet all the damn time or that I haven’t eaten in fifteen hours or that I have blisters on my hands from writing all the fucking time.

“Plus, everybody always acts like I have nothing to do. And I can’t just be a dick and say ‘Oh fuck you, sorry I’m busy as hell all the time and have no free time ever.’ Like last week you and C were both doing homework in the living room and fuckin’ Bitty, bless his cute Georgian ass, asked me to help him cut fruit for pies and literally all I wanted to say was ‘Babe, I’m sorry but I have more work than I can keep track of I can’t do this right now’ but he doesn’t _know_ that so I stood there for two hours and helped him cut pie fillings. Because I can’t say no and no one is ever considerate enough to think that I have real work to do. Because Creative Writing and Poetry are fake majors and I have nothing better to do than chop apples and dust blueberries with powdered sugar until the day I die.”

He lets out a noise that’s borderline frightening in it’s intensity and Dex wants to profusely apologize, this is not what he meant to do at all, this is too much, far too much, way too deep.

He hasn’t heard Nursey say this many words ever in his life, and coupled with the frantic practically screeching tone he’s using, this might be the most unsettled, unchill Derek Nurse he’s ever seen in his entire Nursey career. Including when they used to launch into fistfights over shit like silverware and who got the window seat on the bus on the regular.

He’s debating setting a hand on the back of Derek’s neck when he sits up quickly, Dex snatches his hand back before he even notices.

Derek’s eyes are…suspiciously shiny and Dex is seriously considering jumping ship and just getting up and leaving when Nursey starts word vomiting again.

“...And dude I don’t know…I love Bitty man, I love him so much,”

And Dex’s eyes are widening and he’s choking a little bit because excuse me what the literal fuck.

“But the dude just….doesn’t give a shit about me.”

And for the second time in so many minutes, Dex is completely floored. He has nothing to say. This is so far from the way he expected this evening and this conversation to go that he has absolutely no idea what to do.

Nursey barrels over Dex’s confused noise and even more confused face.

“He bakes Jack ten thousand fucking maple crusted apple pies and Holster and Ransom both get whatever they want, and C gets pecan pie whenever he so much as breathes in a way that’s a little stressed and you get blueberry pie whenever you look at your computer and scowl a little bit. And fuck dude, Whiskey and Tango and all the other taddies get their own pies but…I swear to god, and I know it’s so not chill to get this worked up about it or even to mention it, but he never…even asked me what kind of pie I like…like...never in my life, and dude, I am not chill enough to not like pie.

“Obviously I’ve eaten things he’s made for everyone, like team dinners and left over pie and hot pie out of the oven and cookies and quiche and stuff, and it’s all delicious, don’t get me wrong it’s not like I’m not ever eating anything Bitty-made, but still…he’s never made me anything that I specifically like because he’s never asked.

“Which sounds…so selfish dude, and I swear I’m not that selfish, it’s just weird. And I know he loves C more than he’ll ever love us and I’m fine with that and I accept it, but even you get fucking pies that you like and I don’t know man, it’s fucked up.”

And Nursey is staring up at the library ceiling and sniffling a little bit and Dex is experiencing far too many emotions at once and most of them are panic-related. He barely knows what to do when his sister is crying about a skinned knee from falling down in the driveway let alone what to do when his d-man is having a nervous break down in the library at 9 pm on a Thursday night.

He should call Holster…Ransom breaks down every few weeks; Holster will know what to do.

And Nursey is sniffling and Dex is opening his mouth to say something that’s probably going to be stupid when Derek is jumping out of his seat, his hair flopping about and his eyes open in a way that doesn’t exactly portray sanity.

“Fuck this. I can’t even be here anymore, I can’t look at you coding and know that everyone values fucking STEM over the goddamn arts and I can’t deal with anyone calling me a slacker ever again in my fucking life but _oh, wait!_ It happens on the daily.”

He’s slamming his shit around and everyone in the library is absolutely looking at them because his normally smooth baritone voice just keeps getting to a higher and higher pitch. He’s not even closing his books normally like he usually does, he’s just jamming his stupid leather bound notebooks into his backpack without care and whipping his ridiculous amount of pens in there after them.

“I just can’t be here, I have so much to do and I can’t focus and everything is so much all of the god damned time.”

And Dex realizes that he hasn’t said anything at all in the last five minutes. He hasn’t said a single word since this total break down began.

“I have to go.” And with that, Nursey is wrenching his stupid leather knapsack that Dex makes fun of constantly on to his back and essentially running out of the library.

“Nurse, wait!” is all Dex gets out before Nursey is out of sight and he doesn’t even turn back.

Well. Shit. That... is definitely something he’s going to…need to deal with?

\- 

He sits in the library for another hour or so before he completely gives up on his work. He’s been trying to do literally anything at all, but he can’t stay focused on anything when the image of dumb Nursey with his stupid shiny tear-filled eyes in the midst of a break down is _burned into his brain._

Normally, he wouldn’t give a fuck about Nursey freaking out about something irrelevant. Hell, he would probably even celebrate it, he loves things that make Nursey drop the chill act and show semi-real emotions. But this, this doesn’t feel right. This feels like something that Dex is responsible for, an apparent problem that no one has noticed.

He doesn’t really want to admit it, but he feels guilty. Guilty that he spurred a freak out of epic proportions and guilty that he spends at least a few hours every day with Nursey and hasn’t noticed that he’s been…clearly going through a lot. There’s a little bit of concern thrown in there too, for good measure. Even if he pretends like he doesn’t, some small, amazingly pure part of him really does care about Nursey.

He finally decides to fix the problem that has been unceremoniously thrown into his lap.

He texts Bitty asking him if he’s at the Haus and when he gets a sunny, emoji laden affirmative, he packs his shit and makes his way over.

It’s later now and definitely colder than it had been earlier.

He is decidedly not looking forward to this conversation with Bitty for a multitude of reasons, but the main one being he knows that Bitty is going to…freak out, making him the recipient of two, _count ‘em,_ two breakdowns today. Nobody ever talks to him about their feelings on a normal, good day and he could not be more happy about it now that he’s experiencing this.

Bitty is simultaneously baking something that smells a little bit like cinnamon while also trying to read for one of his classes, which clearly is not going well. He’s lightly covered in flour from the elbows down and most of his papers have a light dusting of sugar all over them.

Without looking up, Bitty smiles a little and asks, “What’s up, honey, did you need anything?”

Dex doesn’t even know how to respond. Normally speechlessness isn’t a thing he experiences; he opens his mouth and “Okay…um…yes…” falls out.

Bitty finally looks up from his books, a vaguely concerned look on his face. He turns over one of his hands in an invitation to please continue, you blithering idiot I have pies to attend to. Not really, but that’s how Dex feels.

“Okay, so, Nurse and I were in the library during work like normal people and he kind of um…suddenly…I don’t know, freaked out and lost his shit because he’s really stressed.”

Bitty’s blonde eyebrows arch up on his forehead in a way that would normally be comical if he could think around the obscene amount of distress he’s feeling, and he starts to laugh a little bit. “Are you serious? I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Nursey even a bit stressed about anything in his whole darn life.”

“Okay, ya well, that’s what we need to talk about…” And Dex trails off, digging in his backpack for a scrap of paper.

“Actually, I wrote it all down after he left because I knew I would need it for this specific reason. Okay, so, um…  
1\. Nursey is really stressed out all the time.  
2\. Nobody ever pays attention to him being stressed  
3\. Everybody gives him shit for being a Creative Writing/Poetry major  
4\. It’s clearly given him a complex  
Also, okay, you’re really not going to like this one but he was like…weirdly emotional about it and I don’t know what else to do but apparently  
5\. You’ve never personally made Nursey anything, let alone a pie."

After that last one, Dex closes his eyes really tight and takes a deep breath. A shit storm of truly epic, emotional proportions is about to break right in the midst of the Haus kitchen.

“Oh Dex, what, that can’t be true.” And Bitty is laughing a little, giggling in the uncomfortable way of his when he knows something is a little bit off.

“I could not have forgotten to bake that boy a pie, I swear.” And the giggles are getting a little hysterical now.

Dex literally wants the ceiling to crash on to him, putting him out of his misery for the rest of eternity. Poor Poindexter, crushed by the Haus ceiling, never having to deal with another emotion from a fellow hockey teammate ever again.

“What’s…what’s his favorite flavor of pie, Bits?”

And there is silence in the kitchen for a few moments.

“No, no there’s no way I didn’t ask everyone when y’all were taddies, there’s absolutely no way.”

And Dex is silent.

Bitty is laughing hysterically again to himself and muttering, “No, there’s no way” over and over again. He’s then suddenly turning and dashing to the cookbooks set up beside the microwave and wrenching a well-worn notebook out from the stack.

“Okay, yes, Chowder likes pecan, Holster likes apple, Jack obviously prefers anything maple crusted and apple flavored, Ransom likes cherry and also apple, you like blueberry, Tango prefers oatmeal cookies, Whiskey likes chocolate cake and not pie, Lardo likes anything with raspberries in it…Jesus Lord in heaven, I never asked Nursey what kind of dessert he likes, oh dear god.”

Dex is literally witnessing Bitty’s gorgeous, perpetually smiling face fold in on itself in utter despair. He _so_ did not sign up for this.

And that’s how he ends up sitting at the kitchen table rubbing Bitty’s back while he cradles his head in his hands and blubbers about how he’s the worst host in the entire world.

“Oh sweet Lord, I am the worst, the worst in the entire world, my mother is gonna crucify me, it’s been almost two darn years, oh Lord.”  
“Okay Bits, I understand that this is…Not Good, but also we need to fix Nursey. I don’t know how exactly, but I feel like something that he likes and is edible may help. He said he hadn’t eaten in like…fifteen hours.”  
“Oh…oh my god.”  
“Bitty, okay, please don’t cry.”  
“I don’t even know _what he likes._ ”  
“…I don’t either”  
“Sweet lord in heaven, we are the worst teammates in the entire world.”  
“I’ll text Ransom and Holster and see if they know anything about what Nursey likes.”

How the fuck can they not know what Nursey likes, they’ve known him for two years and spend weekends at a time incredibly close together on a fairly frequent. How has this conversation _never_ come up? How have neither of them ever _asked?_

Dex quickly composes a text to Ransom and Holster, praying that they’re doing something weird together in the Haus or at the library and that he gets a response fast.

 **Dex:** do you know what nurse likes in terms of baked goods?  
**Holster:** idk dude he likes chocolate  
**Ransom:** Yeah man he’s got a real thing for chocolate, he has like three bars in his bag at all times  
**Holster:** and not hershey’s either, like the real shit, it’s so good he’s let me try it one time  
**Dex:** okay thnx 

“Okay, apparently he’s really into chocolate.”  
“Oh my god, I’m going straight to hell for not knowing what one of my boys likes, dear lord.”  
“Okay no, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.”

Everything is silent for a bit while Bitty breathes slow and regains his sanity. Dex continues to rub his back, cursing every moment of his life that has lead up to this.

“We’re making double chocolate chip cookies right now, William J. Poindexter, chop chop, let’s get it together.” And Dex is going to do whatever Bitty says because he has a terrifying glint in his eye that he really doesn’t want to test.

“These will be the best cookies he’s ever tasted, I swear on Meemaw's grave.”

-

Which is how Dex ends up walking back across campus in the crisp fall evening with a warm plate of double chocolate chip cookies balanced on a ridiculous plate with cartoon hockey sticks all over it.

He’s been to Nursey’s dorm room before, normally to wake him up for early morning lifting or to make sure he hadn’t died after any particularly wild kegsters, but this feels different. This has intent. Nice intent, but intent nonetheless.

It takes him awhile to even knock on the door even though he can hear Nursey puttering around inside. He always mutters under his breath when he’s writing, because “things have to be said out loud, Dexy, I can’t just pull shit out of my ass if it doesn’t flow right verbally.” Normally it’s exhausting and horribly annoying but right now Dex is just glad Nursey hasn’t had a stress-induced aneurism and died.

He knocks eventually and is vaguely horrified at the way Nurse looks when he opens the door. His shirt is obviously inside out and he has ink smeared all over one of his forearms in a giant splotch and a smudge of it under his stupid chin. He’s got like three pens tucked into his hair and one behind his ear, the one that had obviously exploded residing there.

“What’s up?” Nursey’s eyebrows are quirked in a way that Dex hates, like he obviously hadn’t expected to see him here, now.

“Nothing.”  
Okay Dex, that’s so fucking fake. Why did you say that, oh my fucking god.  
“Okay…” Nursey is squinting at him.

Shit, fuck okay what was he planning to say when he got here. What was the plan, what the fuck? Did he even have a plan to begin with?

“I brought you cookies.”  
Are you fucking serious, Poindexter? That’s what you come up with?  
“Excuse me, dude.”  
“Bits and I made you cookies.”  
The only thing Dex can think to do is shrug a little bit and thrust the cookie plate out in front of him to prove he isn’t lying.

Dex literally can’t fucking believe they’re still standing in the hallway of Nursey’s dorm, the cookie plate is starting to burn his hands a little because Bitty insisted on plating them immediately after oven removal to get them to Nursey as fast as possible. He wants to take off his backpack too because he had jammed an eight pack into it before he left the Haus.

“I…may have told Bitty that you low key kind of freaked out and then he freaked out because he’s never made you a pie. I know, I’m sorry, you weren’t trying to make him feel guilty but you looked totally insane and still look insane and I just wanted to make you something to eat that isn’t weed butter or some other stoner junk food shit.”

Nursey is finally looking at the cookie plate cradled in his hands and he’s smiling a little bit, his eyes crinkling up in a way that makes Dex want to dry heave. He can feel the blush heating up his entire body, which he really doesn’t have time for at all why is he not doing his comp sci homework again what the fuck is he doing here.

“Wanna like…come in?” And Nursey is nudging the door open with his hip and sliding out of the way and Dex is finally making his way in.

His room predictably smells of dude like it always does, but there is stuff…everywhere. It looks like an entire notebook exploded and there’s shit all over Nursey’s bed and desk and he has stuff tacked on to cork boards on three of the walls and it makes Dex want to cry a little bit because how the fuck does he ever find _anything._

“Sorry that it’s…messy?” Nursey is shrugging and collecting all the papers from his bed in a huge pile and combining them to the pile of shit on his desk and Des is trying not to hyperventilate because Nursey is never going to find anything again and he’ll never hear the end of it.

“So…you made me cookies?” It sounds a little like a chirp and Nursey is smiling a crooked smile and Dex wants to bang his head back against the wall when he sits down on Nursey’s now cleaned bed and can’t be blamed if he actually follows through.

“Sorry that you kind of a had a full blown meltdown in the library and I felt a little bad, dude. Plus you said you hadn’t eaten in like two days or some shit and I don’t have time to deal with your malnourished ass.”

Nursey is smiling bigger and his eyes are getting a little shiny again and Dex is breathing too fast and too hard for this situation holy shit no, what is going _on?_

“Dude…that is…dude that’s so nice.” And Nursey’s reaching up and wiping at his eyes and sniffling in a vaguely dramatic way.

“What the _fuck,_ Nurse.”

“Dude, sorry nobody has made me anything personally in like fifteen years.” He’s stopping and wiping at his eyes again and taking a deep breath. “I know you didn’t subscribe to the Derek Nurse is Emo As Fuck podcast, but dude…cookies.”

He’s gingerly taking the plate from Dex’s hands and unwrapping the plastic wrap that Bitty painstakingly and also lovingly wrapped and he’s eating a cookie and closing his watering eyes and Dex wants to die, why did he do this again, someone remind him.

“You’re the best, man, oh my god this is just what I needed.”

Dex can’t help but roll his eyes heavenward. How did he get here?

They sit there in silence for a while while Nursey eats and eventually Dex grabs a cookie too and pulls the eight pack out of his backpack because wow, apparently that’s who they are now, eating homemade cookies and drinking beer on a Thursday night in the dorms.

“When’s the last time you took a break?” Dex thinks it’s probably hasn’t been in a few days judging by Nursey’s lack of a grasp on sanity.

“I…haven’t been doing anything but work for probably fifty years.”  
“When is all your shit actually due?”  
“Soon, but also…I just can’t keep going, I have to take a break.”

He’s dropping his head down onto his desk and breathing deep and Dex uncomfortably shifts while sitting on Nursey’s bed with it’s worn dark blue sheets that smell like man and what in the literal fuck. 

“Do you want to like, watch a movie or some shit?” Nursey’s voice is a little muffled from all of the paper scattered around his desk.

“Um, yeah sure, but not for too long because I have a ton of shit to do.” Nursey sits up and rolls his eyes. He leans back in his desk chair and Dex has to physically prevent himself from staring at the spot where his sweat pants ride low on his hips.

“Join the fuckin’ club."

-

Three hours later at 4 am, Dex is horrified to realize that they’re still watching House Hunters International on Netflix. Nursey is curled up beside him and his breathing is starting to even out and he’s blinking slower and Dex sure as _shit_ did not sign up for this.

He hates how good Nursey looks, how his smile gets a little droopy when he’s sleepy and how his sweats make him look soft and comfortable and how he still has that ridiculous splotch of ink on his forearm. Dex wants to run his hands along it to see if it feels any different and wow no he actually doesn’t he hasn’t slept in 20 hours he needs to go to bed right now.

So he reaches out and closes the laptop and Derek’s head flops over to one side so he can look sideways at Dex. 

“Is it like four in the fucking morning.”  
“Yep, what the fuck are we doing.”

Nursey stretches a little and his shirt rides up and Dex loses his breath and oh shit no way, he groans a little bit and practically slithers up his bed so he’s lying on his side next to where Dex is sitting.

“Is it super fuckin cold out?”  
“Yeah, I mean for fall I guess, why?”  
“You can chill here tonight if you want.”

He pointedly doesn’t look at him when he says it and Dex has to physically stop his eyes from rolling back into his head because he doesn’t have time for this. Nursey has a single and like fuck is Dex sleeping on the floor.

“Just get into bed and don’t make it weird.”

He could get up and leave, he absolutely could. He could turn off the floor lamp and grab his backpack and slip out and even if it is cold he would be able to sleep in his own bed, not crunched up against Nursey who had started crying in the library earlier and again when he brought him cookies because apparently he is a real person with real feelings and is decidedly the most unchill person in the history of the universe.

“Dude, just stay. I can hear how loud you’re thinking right now, it’s fine.” 

They’re both silent for a few seconds, Dex doesn’t move. 

“There’s extra sweats in the bottom drawer, hurry up and turn off the light.”

And Dex does.

Nursey is pressed up against the wall behind him and he opens up the comforter for Dex to slide in with a vague smile in the darkness.

It’s straight up four in the morning and Dex is lying ramrod straight on his side, not breathing and pointedly staring at nothing. He doesn’t want to make it weird, but Christ, is it weird.

Nursey breathes out a sigh and Dex can feel it tickle the hair at the base of his skull, he has to hold himself even tighter to prevent from shivering.

A few moments pass and they both relax, and Nursey shifts a little and is suddenly pressing himself flush against Dex, front to back and Dex has to bite down hard on his lower lip to prevent the ungodly noise that was preparing to come out of his mouth.

“Is it chill if we cuddle a little bit?” 

Dex shrugs his shoulder as best he can while preventing the least amount of movement. Thank you, Derek Nurse, for asking the question a little late in the game after the cuddling has already commenced. His entire life and every decision up until this moment have all been jokes. 

Nursey snakes his arm across Dex’s middle, warm and heavy. Some small part of his brain notes excitedly that it’s the arm his tattoo is on. He banishes that thought and focuses on not breathing or thinking or existing.

Dex thanks every possible higher power in existence for the light being off because his whole body is flushed and he can feel the heat coming off of the back of his neck in a way that he’s sure Nursey can feel too. 

They settle in together, and for both of them being essentially giants, it’s not the most uncomfortable thing to ever happen. Dex is comfortable and Nursey is a solid wall behind him, emanating a comforting warmth, his arm fitting into the space between Dex’s hip and his ribs. 

It’s 4:30 am on a fucking Thursday and he’s spooning with his linemate. After drinking beer and eating double chocolate chip cookies and bingewatching House Hunters for entirely too long. After experiencing two separate meltdowns from two different hockey players. He’s so ready to sleep and never think about today ever again. 

Nursey has shifted slightly and slipped his hand under the soft cotton of Dex’s t-shirt, pressing his palm flat against his abdomen. 

Hm. This should be weird. This should definitely be weirder than it is. His brain is quietly screaming.

But Nursey’s stupid hand is huge and warm and a comforting pressure matching up nicely to his entire frame pressing against him from behind.

Dex can’t control the soft noise of contentment he makes. 

He’s listening to Nursey’s breathing and in that space close to unconsciousness but not yet sleep, his mind supplies that it sounds pretty similar to the ocean.

He’s so close to falling asleep when Nursey noses the back of his neck, his persistent five o’clock shadow scraping against the back of his neck. He shivers involuntarily. 

Nursey presses a kiss to soft skin below his ear, closed mouth and chaste and soft and delicate in a way that Dex didn’t know he could be. Very similar to the way that he didn’t know Nursey could process and show any emotions other than chill and pure, unadulterated rage. He’s learned more about Derek Nurse in the last 6 or so hours than he has in an entire semester. The thought warms his belly a little bit, knowing that Nursey is nuanced and has secrets and things that Dex doesn’t know from being with him most days.

He belatedly realizes that he’s also oddly flattered, knowing that he had seen a side of Derek today that most people don’t really see, even if it was horrifying and scary and wild.

“You’re my best friend, ya know that right?”

It’s whispered across the space between their bodies, pressed tightly together. Directly out of Nursery’s mouth and into Dex’s ear. It’s a little fragile and special and made even more meaningful by the fact that it’s late at night and in the dark.

He can feel himself smiling and is relatively unwilling to stop it.

“I know,” and before he can think better of it, he’s rucking up his own shirt a little higher and tangling his fingers with Nursey’s, loosely holding his hand.

“You’re mine too.” He’s not entirely sure if he’s said it aloud but he feels another scratchy kiss pressed against his neck and he’s pretty sure that he did.

In that soft space before sleep, where you’re awake enough to be vaguely aware of the things around you but not alert enough to process anything to heavy, Nursey let’s it drop from his mouth. 

“Love you.” 

And Dex is way too close to sleep to respond, but he squeezes Nursey’s hand a little tighter and presses back into him a little more and desperately hopes that he knows the sentiment is returned.

-

Dex wakes up slow and soft and he’s thoroughly aware that it is way too early.

The light is shining at an angle that he’s unfamiliar with too, directly into his eyes

He’s warm though, comfortably so. It feels like one of those mornings where everything starts off well. He shifts a little and feels rather than hears a small chuckle from beside him.

Oh. Right. Nursey.

“You up?” 

He’s pretty sure he’s too comfortable to say anything. Too warm and wrapped up in blankets and what he’s starting to realize is Nursey’s arm. He’s pressed up sideways against Nursey with his head on his chest, who is lying on his back with an arm around Dex, his fingers in his hair. 

He can’t see him without shifting a little, but he already knows that Nursey has a dopey smile on his face. He’s undoubtedly smug in the fact that he woke up earlier than Dex. A rarity that is always grounds for gloating.

Dex says nothing, grumbles a little bit and presses closer.

Things are quiet for a while. He can see the dust motes float through the air where the sun streams into the room. Nursey is breathing slowly and his head rises in time with his chest. His fingers are lightly touching the nape of his neck and Dex can’t remember the last time he’s been this relaxed.

“What time s’it?” he mutters quietly.

“It’s like 7 am, dude.” 

Dex groans, it’s Friday and he doesn’t have class until around noon.

“Hey,” and Nursey sounds serious enough for Dex to tilt his head at an unnatural angle to look him in the eyes.

“Thanks…a lot…” and Nursey is staring intently into his eyes and Dex shrugs and grumbles noncommittally.

“It’s just nice to know that you’ve got my back. I can freak out in the fuckin’ library and instead of you pretending like it never happened and leaving me to die a panic induced death alone in my room, you made me cookies. I haven’t had homemade cookies in so fuckin’ long dude.” 

He keeps saying that like it means something significant, which it probably does.

Dex presses his head into the crook of Nursey’s neck and pinches his side a little.

“Course, next time I freak out from stress I want a pie.”

“Noted.”

They’re both quiet for a second, relishing in being close to one another and sleepy and warm.

“I really do love you though.” 

And it’s said in a way that makes it clear that it’s a revelation, emotional and raw, it cracks a little bit at the end and suddenly Dex feels like he’s going to start crying too. 

“Love you.” is all that Dex says back because he’s trying to get a grip on all his feelings and the possibility that they’re currently standing on the cusp of something far more significant than he intended 15 hours ago.

“Not like...in a friendly way. I mean, in a friendly way too, but in…a sappy romantic I-write-poems-for-you-in-my-spare-time kind of way. In case you weren’t picking up on my drift.” 

And Dex feels like he’s been delivered a punch straight to the solar plexus and everything shifts a little on it’s axis and he’s smiling too big for his stupid mouth and looking Derek directly in his dumb gorgeous eyes. 

“Same for me too, you fuckin’ mess of a person.” 

And Nursey’s eyes shine and his face lights up and he squeezes Dex a little tighter in his arms.

It feels like the moment they’ve both been waiting for even if they didn’t realize it. It’s been there since the beginning when they butted heads for the sake of it, rubbed each other the wrong way on purpose. They’re falling off that edge into something stupidly magical and a little bit unknown. 

And he takes a moment to just relish in the fact that they even made it here. To appreciate the fact that they didn’t kill each other when they were frogs, and that they went from two people forced to get along who wanted to actually murder each other with their bare hands to two friends who argue for the sake of it, for fun and the exhilarated way it made them feel. Friends who have soft moments in the quiet of daily life, who can read each other’s facial expressions and know what to do in response. And if their looks went on for too long or they caught each other staring, that’s okay too. Because here they are, right now.

They’re going to argue a lot and make each other crazy but for one single moment of clarity that he will probably regret later, Dex realizes that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the midst of this life altering moment, Nursey presses a kiss to Dex’s temple and asks “Yo dude, are there any more of those bomb ass cookies?” 

Dex rolls his eyes back into his head, an action he now knows is going to be something that happens even more frequently than it already does.

“Shut the fuck up, Nursey.”

“I’m assuming we’re going to stay in bed for the rest of the day, right? And it’s going to be s'wawesome?” 

And they do. And it is.


End file.
